The invention relates to a hinge for cabinet doors or lids, especially for period furniture, having two exposed knuckles, one for fastening to the wall of the cabinet and the other to the door or lid, these parts being able to be swung in relation to one another about the longitudinal central axis of a pintle held in one of the knuckles and engaged in a complementary bore in the other knuckle.
As a result of the changing trends in interior decorating there is an increasing interest in furniture reminiscent of the furniture of earlier periods. Consequently, there is an increasing demand for hinges to harmonize with such furniture, i.e., there is a need for hook-and-eye hinges, or pintle hinges, that is, hinges having exposed knuckles one of which--the one that is fastened to the cabinet wall for example--bears a pintle which is engaged in the other knuckle that is fastened to the cabinet door. The knuckles are additionally provided, as a rule, with decorative finials. The knuckles were formerly, and to some extent still today, produced from sheet steel blanks by rolling. The finials are--or were--made as separate turnings and they were fastened to the rolled knuckles or to a projecting end of the pintle by special procedures. This method of manufacturing such hinges is complicated, even when modern production techniques and machine tools are used, so that hinges suitable for period furniture are relatively expensive despite their simplicity. On the other hand, pintle hinges are also used in modern furniture and on interior doors, in which case the mounting of the members of the hinges is performed as a rule by means of mounting pins projecting from the knuckles at right angles to the hinge axis and bearing a wood screw thread, for example, which is driven into an undersized bore in the door leaf and in the supporting wall or door frame. In such cases it is possible, by varying the depth to which the pin is screwed, to provide for the readjustment of an incorrectly aligned door. However, such adjustment can be made only in steps corresponding at least to the pitch of the thread of the mounting pin, because, for each adjustment, either the member that bears the pintle or the member that is to be engaged by the pintle has to be turned by 360.degree., or a multiple thereof, since only in this manner will the pintle be in alignment with the bore of the other member of the hinge. Furthermore, the adjustment can be made only with the door removed.